Broken Lands

Chapter 328 – At the Gate

The link-gate that led out of the Night Market looked a lot like all of the others Sophia had seen with one large exception: the letters scattered along the edge made a comprehensive message. It wasn’t flowery or even long, the way Sophia had expected; instead, it was five letters that made up a single word. The simplest translation of those five letters was equally simple: OUT or EXIT; it could mean either one. In this case, Sophia was willing to bet that the similarity to an Exit sign was not accidental.

Sophia sketched the door anyway. The fact that this door was understandable told her something, even if it wasn’t what she’d been looking for. She didn’t think the patterns along the sides where letters had been on the other doors with letters meant anything, but it was better to have them in case they did.

The first rays of dawn were peeking through the artificial canyons of the Night Market when they stepped through the link-gate, wary in case there were monsters. Instead, the link’s courtyard held tents and a man Sophia didn’t recognize watching the gate.

“Rockfist! And … you’re the Flying Stars, right?” The watchman waved cheerily. “Glad you made it. Only four teams are ahead of you. We’re waiting for the rest; the Shade says he’s expecting them within the next half-day, probably sooner. He’ll want to hear what you found.”

“After breakfast, surely,” Meadow answered with a smile. “And what we found won’t help much; it was a Night Market.” She half-turned and waved at the link-gate they’d entered through. “A token link-gate isn’t a way back.”

Sophia turned to look. She’d planned to sketch the archway, but hadn’t gotten there before she was distracted by the guard. This one was surrounded by a jumble of letters again, but in the middle of the door itself there was a shiny circular depression. It seemed to be sized almost perfectly for the tokens the Eidolon gave them.

As she was sketching it, Sophia noticed that the third letter was the first one she’d use if she were writing out Night Market. The sixth letter was the second one in the phrase, which made her eyes jump from letter to letter, counting. It seemed to break up in the middle the first time she tried, so she carefully checked her letters, then marked the ones that were in the third spot each time. That time, it clearly spelled out Night Market on the left side of the doorway. The top seemed to be gibberish again, but the right side of the link-gate also said Night Market if she started at the third letter.

Sophia was just about to start trying to figure out what the other two (or more, maybe?) words that were hidden in the gate-link’s decorations were when Dav tapped her shoulder to tell her that dinner was ready. Maybe it was really breakfast. Either way, it made her aware of just how hungry she was, so she put the notebook away; she could decipher it later.

“Welcome to the camp!” Arak Shade greeted them as they walked towards the cooking fire. “I already heard you found a Night Market, just like I did, so there’s not much to say there. I’m a little surprised that only one double-team that didn’t make it into one has come out, and that no one else made it out between you and us, since you came out at dawn. Were you looking at the link-gate?”

Sophia nodded, then volunteered a little information as she made her way forward. Something smelled good, even if she couldn’t quite identify what it was. “I was looking at the inscription around the door. I think it might be encoded. Ciphered? I’m not sure what the right word is.”

“If you can figure it out, I’d like to know.” Arak didn’t sound like he expected it; instead, he sounded like he was trying not to discourage her even though he didn’t expect anything to come of it. “Did you have a chance to look at the lockout? We can’t open a token gate without a token, so no one knows what’s on the other side.”

“Wouldn’t it just be a tuned portal?” Sophia frowned at Arak. “It’s probably just a wall or something until you put a token in. I mean, I can look, but don’t expect it to lead anywhere without a key.”

Arak smiled easily. “If you would. You should rest; I know you didn’t get any last night. Once you’ve slept and looked at the link-gate, we’ll be moving on.”

He was right; she was tired. Food came first, then sleep.

When Sophia woke up, she shimmied out from between Dav’s arms and got ready for the day. A quick meal of more of the surprisingly flavorful stew gave her the fuel she needed to take another look at the link-gate.

The link-gate was enchanted, definitely, but it was clearly in a dormant state when it was closed. Sophia spent a couple of hours tracing the mana flows before she had to admit defeat; she wasn’t getting anywhere while it was inactive. All she’d really managed to learn was that there was definitely a connection somewhere else, probably wherever read the token to set where the gate went. It was possible that she’d be able to fake a token, but she’d have to see one work before she knew.

Arak Shade was very happy with that answer, far happier than Sophia thought was warranted. Wasn’t it obvious that she had to see something work to duplicate it?

Maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it was the fact that she thought she might be able to do something if she did see it happen. Others had seen tokens used, after all, including Arak himself. They couldn’t duplicate the tokens’ effect. Arak didn’t see any reason to “waste” a token this close to the entrance, however; there were better rewards farther in, so that was where he’d spend the token to give Sophia a chance to figure out how it worked.

They stood near the gate talking when magic moving caught Sophia’s attention. It came from the gate. “I think someone’s coming through the gate.”

“Really?” Arak sounded surprised. “That’s good news; hopefully it’s some of the stragglers.”

Strands of mana came from spots Sophia hadn’t identified as important in the gate structure and wound around the doorway before it shimmered out of existence and turned into a proper link-gate. One thing Sophia noted for certain was that the token slot was completely untouched by magic; the link-gate could be opened from the other side without triggering the token on this side. Sophia had expected that, but it was good to have confirmation.

The strands of mana were also anchored in places that Sophia had identified as important, and those places flashed as each person stepped through the gateway. That seemed odd; a proper portal shouldn’t do that. Was there some sort of reporting happening after each transit?

Sophia observed the next flash carefully. 

No, that wasn’t it. The flash happened before the person stepped through, and it came from the posts and spread across the face of the portal. It was fast, but she could tell that much, even if she couldn’t see exactly what it was doing. It had something to do with the teleportation process itself.

That meant it was something she shouldn’t mess with. Mucking with the actual working mechanism of a portal was a great way to break it, and broken portals could have all sorts of bad effects. Sophia knew that much, just like she knew she wasn’t a portal mage who could fix things like that. Her father might be able to, but she couldn’t.

She needed to focus on the basics. If you controlled the authentication, or really any of the communication, you could control everything else. You didn’t have to know how the system actually worked if you could override it. That was just as true in magic as it was anywhere else. Knowing how the system worked might be a shortcut to gaining the rest of the control you needed, but it wasn’t the place to start.

She couldn’t see that from the receiving side. What she could see was possibly a better place to start: everything she could ignore. Before she knew it, Sophia was taking notes about the magical movement that accompanied each person as they stepped through the gate.They were all the same, but each time she noticed something she hadn’t before. 

When the portal closed and the link-gate turned back into the seemingly metal door with a token slot it had been before, Sophia turned her attention from the magic to the people. 

She expected to see people happily making their way out of the Night Market, just like she had with the others. Well, it was daytime, so probably not the Night Market, but something similar.

That wasn’t what she saw at all. Instead, she saw two teams’ worth of people who were all injured being healed by Arak Shade, Dav, and the only other healer traveling with the expedition, Dorian Greenleaf. Dav’s healing wasn’t fast enough to see, but Sophia could easily see what Greenleaf and Arak were doing. 

Arak Shade took the deeper injuries, the ones that weren’t just a cut. A damaged joint, a cracked or splintered bone; those went to Arak. He healed them from the inside out with his shadows, which covered the area in darkness, then lightened to reveal less injury than when they started. For worse injuries, Arak might have to concentrate the shadows more than once before they faded enough for him to be satisfied. He never healed anything completely; Sophia was certain he left that for Dav to handle. Once they were in good enough shape that they could move safely and weren’t going to hurt themselves worse, that was enough.

Greenleaf had clearly done all of the immediate patching; he manifested leaves made of green magic that acted as bandages, more or less, that stopped the bleeding instead of simply absorbing it. That gave him time to concentrate on each injury and make a smaller patch that would hold everything together even better. His magic reminded Sophia a lot of the first aid kits people usually carried into dungeons. 

She was pretty sure there was one in her pack, now that she thought about it. She hadn’t needed it since she entered the Broken Lands, so about a third of it was probably expired, but it was probably there. It wasn’t needed right now, but she should probably check into it and find it. 

She probably ought to have used it a couple of times in the past year, too. It would have been useful when they fought the corpsevines, and probably a couple other times she wasn’t thinking of. Oops.

Greenleaf’s healing wasn’t just first aid, either. As she watched, he healed a man with a cut through his abdomen into his guts, piece by piece. That part of his healing reminded her of a surgeon’s careful work more than a healer’s, though he used no tools other than his hands and his magic. Periodically, he called Arak over to help; apparently, Arak’s magic was better against disease than Greenleaf’s, even though Greenleaf’s was better at actually putting the parts back together. It was an interesting comparison in the strengths of different types of healers.

Sophia was pretty sure Dav’s healing worked on both, but it was far slower than what she saw the others do.

Sophia shook herself and dug through her pack to find that first aid kit. It wasn’t on the list Arak provided, which just went to show that even he could miss things; he expected to be there to heal once there was any time at all to stop and recover. That was clearly not always the case.